
Don’t become a “rainbird coach.” I had a neighbor who would
wait until his lawn had turned brown, and only then turn on his
rainbird water sprinkler. I see a lot of sales managers who act the
same way: they wait until there’s a meltdown before coaching their
people. Far better for a lawn—and a salesperson—to receive
regular “sprinkling.”…

A growth-oriented 10-year old telecommunications company with 350 salespeople worldwide had achieved a successful start-up by targeting a market niche with a quality product at a lower price-point. But competitors then responded by lowering their prices, so the company’s salespeople were no longer able to sell based on a lower price.…

In October 2010, McKinsey & Company published an interesting white paper – Getting more from your training programs. The focus was on optimizing the results from the $100 billion that world-wide companies spend every year on performance skill training in areas ranging from performance management to sales techniques.…

Crafting a sales strategy is a key to success – especially when selling into major accounts. While front-line sales managers agree, we often hear comments like, “I don’t have the time” and “My territory is spread out and I don’t see my people face-to-face”. …

Sales training projects are still not achieving the predicted results and experts are still stumped. There is only one explanation left: the living dead are terrorizing sales training projects. …

When most people think of online training, the first thing that often comes to mind is a static slideshow presentation with monotonous voiceover. Many also associate online training with human resources as a means to ensure safety in the workplace or keep up-to-date with essential job skills or processes. …

Some sayings are right on the money; some are just plain misleading; and some are partial truths. When it comes to changing sales performance “practice makes perfect” is a partial truth. “Practice + feedback makes perfect” is more accurate. This small difference yields a huge dividend in sales training.…

Is sales – and sales training, in particular – finally coming of age? There’s no doubt that learning & development (L&D) professionals, like the rest of business, currently face major challenges, and those engaged with the sales organization probably more than most.…